Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

From his voice, one could tell how delighted he was. "I was merely lucky, I still have a lot more way to go" Simon knew that there were many strong people in this world, thus he couldn't just let this praise get to his head.

Aldebaran smiled, took out a mysterious fruit from the emerald green light that flashed on his hand and passed it to Simon.

"Eat this, it is called Gaia's fruit. It can quickly heal your wounds".

Simon took the fruit that looked like a strange pomegranate and bit down on it without hesitation. In any case, Aldebaran wouldn't try to hurt him and especially not with such cheap tricks. The being even tried to protect him from the shadows.

A mysterious icy cold energy swiftly entered his body the moment he took a bite and soothed the numerous wounds in his body. His fractured bones, cracking joints and torn muscles everything swiftly healed at a rate visible to the naked eye.

Simon was astounded seeing such a mystical effect. The effect of this fruit was even better than the healing elixirs from his shop. Simon took large bites and quickly devoured the fruit down. He could feel all his wounds, internal and external all swiftly healing after that.

Haha… Aldebaran laughed seeing the stunned expression in Simon's eyes, after that he fixed his attention on Valdris and said.

"Brat, I believe you have no more qualms with this seed I chose? If so then I would like you to not get in his way any longer. You see, it was me who had given this young fellow the trail to subdue all of the troublemakers of the north. I hope that you can give this old man face and let this young fellow take that dragon to his dungeon".

Although Aldebaran said it humbly, his voice still carried an ancient prestige to it.

"Hmph, even without you telling me, I wasn't going to stand in his way anyways. And I have already told you a thousand times, stop calling me a brat. I am no longer that juvenile dragon from the past" Valdris spat in annoyance.

Seeing the two converse with so familiarity, Simon realised that they were acquainted with each other.

Aldebaran naturally saw the look in Simon's eyes and explained pointing at Valdris "This brat here was once sent by those old pedantic fellows from his clan here to get some experience from me".

"However, at that time, he was too young and hot headed. Thinking that he can just trample everything underneath his power, this guy barged inside my territory".

"Stop talking" his face twitching a little, Valdris tried to stop Aldebaran from saying anything further. However, how could the king of ancient treants stop just because he was said to do so?

Aldebaran snickered and continued his story—"I obviously recognised the bloodline of this fellow the moment he came to the Ghastly winding forest but I played along with his antics. Since he came to seek trouble, I sent my people after him in droves and after he was all exhausted I sent those powerful subordinates of mine".

"They beat him up, tied him upside down and brought him to me. Hahaha… you should have seen there to see the look on his face at that time. This brat here begged us to not eat him, he thought that we were going to grill him on fire and eat him".

"I said stop talking..." Valdris' face was flushed red with embarrassment, he roared trying to drown out some of the words. However, this pathetic attempt of his to hide some embarrassing facts from his juvenile hood was clearly a big fail.

Simon and the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon heard everything. The former was trying to not laugh out loud while the latter was giving him some strange looks.

The adult dragon that made Simon worry so much, was actually beaten silly by Aldebaran and the ancient treants when he was still in his juvenile stage.

Simon knew that he shouldn't laugh but it was still funny hearing Valdris think that the ancient treants wanted to eat him.

While Simon was trying to suppress his laugh, Aldebaran on the other hand did not care for Valdris' face and laughed out loud. His laughter boomed across the entire place.

"You damn undying old ghost, if you are here to make fun of me then return back" Valdris shouted, his body trembling with fury. He had lost all face in front of his juniors, how would he be able to keep his act together in the future?

"Haha… that was some good laugh. Don't worry, I didn't come here only to laugh at you. But before I get down with my business, don't you have a favour that you wanted to ask this young fellow?"

"Tch… so you were even snooping on us too huh?" Valdris was not surprised that the latter overheard their conversation, after all, this entire ghastly winding forest was like his territory, nothing can elude his senses.

Only after Aldebaran mentioned it, Simon realised that he and Valdris were in the middle of a conversation before they were interrupted. He remembered that the latter had mentioned something about asking a favour from him.

After giving Aldebaran a vicious look, Valdris placed his attention back on Simon—

"Forgive me, we couldn't finish our conversation because certain someone barged in the middle of it. If only they could shut up, we would have finished this a long time ago. Anyways, the favour I wanted to ask you, is related to this guy behind me".

Valdris pointed at the Earth Shattering Lower Dragon behind him "Are you aware of some rules in our dragon clan?".

Simon shook his head, although he knew a little bit from the lightning draconic serpent, he wasn't sure that knowledge was accurate.

"I see, it's only natural that you don't know that. Allow me to tell you some of the rules then. One of the first rules in our dragon clan is that, when an infantile dragon reaches the juvenile stage, they have to leave the clan and wander the outside world".

"This is done so that the individual can gain experience and grow stronger by surviving in the harsh unforgiving world. They have to live in the outside world, compete against others and claw their way up until they reach the adult stage and only then are they allowed to return back to the clan".

"I had to go through the same experience and of course this fellow behind me too. The adult stage for us dragons hold a special meaning and thus no matter which corner of the world we are in, when we reach the adult stage we have to come back to the dragon clan".

"When a dragon reaches the adult stage, their body and power go through a comprehensive development. During that time, they require an immense amount of energy to go through that transformation. This kind of energy can only be found in our Ancestral Dragon Land".

"Thus the need to come back to the clan. This kind of transformation is also called the adult ceremony and represents an extremely great significance to all dragons".

Simon intently listened to Valdris, the gist of what he said, was more or less similar to what the lightning draconic serpent had informed him.

While he was having these side thoughts, Valdris continued—"The second rule of our dragon clan states that only those dragon that has gone through the adult ceremony, is qualified to get a name from the Elder Hall. I have received my name from them too. I believe I don't have to tell you the importance of receiving a name?".

Simon nodded his head, of course, he understood how significant receiving a name was in this world for a beast.

A name for a beast was vastly different than humans who simply use it to address others. For a beast, the process of naming is called a Bestowal. It uses an enormous amount of mana and life force to grant a name to a beast.

The name then becomes a branding that makes the beast far stronger and higher ranked than before. Naturally, it can only be done by a high levelled being since it constitutes a great level of risk.

If a person isn't strong enough to grant a name, they can die from the process of getting all of the mana and life force sucked out of them.

His buddy, the Bloodthorn demonic warhorse, was also a beast without a name. It was not like Simon was unaware of it, he had inherited some memories of this process.

However, the reason why he hasn't given a name to the warhorse a name yet is because the warhorse was yet to reach the limit of his growth and secondly Simon had to become more powerful than the warhorse to give it a name. Otherwise, he would only just end up miserably failing later.

Seeing Simon nod his head, Valdris went on to explain the other things.

"It looks like you are aware of it, then I will be honest with you. The Earth Shattering Lower Dragon has yet to reach the adult stage but once he does, he needs to come back to the dragon clan and go through the adult ceremony to receive a name".

"The favour I wanted to ask is that you allow him to come back with me to the dragon clan once he reaches that stage. I believe it should also be beneficial to you, once this guy goes through the adult ceremony, its power would be incomparable to what it is now. At that time, he would be far more useful to you than he is now".

Valdris patted the dragon behind him whose eyes glossed over when the name Ancestral Dragon lands was mentioned.